Our purpose is to continue and to enhance the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Washington. This program provides an opportunity for a group of highly qualified students, selected from a national pool, to pursue the M.D. and Ph.D. degrees concurrently. The overall aim of the program is to provide training for outstanding future medical researchers. Each student is trained in the methodology and logic of basic research as well as the disciplines of medicine. Our expectation is that our trainees will enter careers in medical research and make significant advances in the understanding of human disease processes. A major goal of this program is to achieve a sufficiently large number of MSTP students in each medical school class to establish medical research as major career objectives at the University of Washington. There are several unique features of the program: (1) Our program emphasizes training in molecular biology and bioengineering. (2) New students begin a period of laboratory rotations prior to beginning the fist year medical school curriculum. (3) The second year medical school curriculum occupies mainly afternoons, leaving some mornings free for graduate courses. (4) MSTP students meet regularly on a monthly basis at the school or at faculty homes to present their research and to discuss their future directions. In this program the MSTP student is able to pursue an in-depth research project and medical school studies. Being more intense than either a medical or graduate school program, this experience provides a unique perspective and orientation to medical research. Our overall goal is to train a coterie of excellent students to translate basic molecular research into important medical discoveries.